Som Non-Label is Italian based netlabel. In 2013, they released some musics with various genre. You will know that they work as a team when you listen to different color of music in every artists they have. And here Mario, one of the team member, kindly spare his time to have a conversation with me about the label, netlabel movement, and physical release in music industry nowadays. Enjoy your reading :)

Can you tell me a little bit about Som Non-Label? What and where is it, when did you start this, and what makes you think you have to make a netlabel?

Well, Som Non-Label is a collateral project of Sonofmarketing (www.sonofmarketing.it), an Italian webzine founded by Nicola Orlandino. The idea to create a net-label was born in the past spring, when we decided to create something like a label or a press agency to help worthy self-produced artists and bands in finding visibility on the net, so to obtain (we hope) a real contract in a few time. We are not a professional label, but a group of guys located in several parts of Italy, who simply love music and work to this project freely, just for passion.

How many people running this label?

Actually Som Non-Label counts four members, the founder Nicola Orlandino, Giacomo Cortese, Andrea Meli and me. We evaluate all projects sent to our official e-mail and look at other interesting bands on the web. When we are all persuaded of the goodness of a musical project, we start working with it. As we are a small group, we have to be very selective in our choices and someone remains over, grudgingly.How many releases do you have?

At the moment we have released nine works (all infos are available in our website http://somnonlabel.wix.com/somnonlabel), and a tenth is coming in February. It will be our first release of 2014, that is a re-issue of Filmloom's ep "L i m i t".On our Bandcamp and Soundcloud platforms, streamings and downloads are always available.

I listened to some of your releases. Cataldi with his indie-folk music, La Batterie with experimental pop, and some others post-rock.Actually, is there any genre qualification to be released by you? Because I found various music genre in your release.

I can say we haven't any genre qualification, as we give attention to all kinds of music, both in Som Non-Label as in our webzine Sonofmarketing. We only think that all music has to be listened to, without preclusions.

What is your criteria of music released by your label?

As I said before, we don't have a genre criterion, but we evaluate all albums proposed singularly. When we think that a work has got to be known by most people possible, we start working at it.How is the process of searching the band, ask them join your label, then release them? Can you tell me a little bit.

We work in two ways: we collect all works arrived on our e-mail (somnonlabel@gmail.com) but at the same time we make an active research on the web. All bands who want to propose themselves can send their work to us. We listen both to all of them and to those ones we found on the web. After that, each member of the staff gives a vote and the best ones are chosen to be contacted.Then, why netlabel?

Well, this has been a necessary choice, as we work for free and haven't got any funds. Luckily, internet has opened lots of ways to share music without great investments. It makes more difficult to have a good visibility, because of an overcrowded scene, but at the same time it is an important opportunity for small labels like ours.

I'm curious about this. Do you still believe that physical release is the best music documentation?

We strongly still believe in physical releases! Nowadays, lots of people just stop at digital releases or, at worst, only at fast listening on video and streaming platforms. We think this should be only the first step to approach good music, but the appeal of a cd packaging or of a vynil is something more for people who really love music. Of course, we work on digital as a necessity, but we strongly hope that our bands will have a physical distribution, soon.Is there any band from your label, have physical release? maybe CD or vinyl?

As I said, our label hasn't got physical releases because of a cost problem. Our aim is just to create a virtual bridge between self-production and "real" labels, so digital stuffs work well with our idea.

Do you think in the future, physical release will be changed by netlabel download?

We think that people who love music will never renounce to have a physical copy of an album, so digital download have to be seen as an opportunity and not as a musical disease. Who understands that, could take advantage of internet's strength and try to have more visibility than how much would be possible without net. Not so simple as it seems, but a real chance.

How is the netlabel movement in your country? Is there a lot of netlabel beside you there today?

Well, Italian netlabel movement is quite articulated and covers all musical genres. There's so much submerged good music in our country and often a digital release is an obliged step to reach a good number of people in a little time. Some of them also propose physical copies of their releases, but of course the "virtual" dimension remains fundamental.

Mention some of them please..

I could mention Stop Records, Ephedrina Netlabel, Lepers Productions, Muertepop or Bad Panda Records, as netlabels I particularly appreciated for some interesting releases. I'm sure I'm forgetting many other good labels, so I suggest you to have a full "web" immersion in Italian underground scene, as soon as you can!Do you have a plan in the future for this label?

Our plan is, as always, just to make our bands known. We just hope that our work will be helpful for their growth and we'll costantly work on this aim. On the other side, blog and webzine's support is very important for us, so we hope, in the future, to have some more space for our bands.

This is the last questions. suggest us some must-listen band in your label?

It's such a difficult question! We really love all of our releases and strongly believe in them, we could only suggest to give a listen to all of them. They will not delude listeners, I'm sure of it!

If you want to know more about Som Non-Label, you can visit their page on Facebook or check out their site.